Greek and Roman Music
MUSIC
Music has played an integral part in the way people have watched plays and movies.
This page takes you on a journey in which you will learn how important a role
music has played in the understanding of writers like Aristophanes, Menander
and Plautus, and in movies like those of Charlie Chaplin, It Happened One
Night, and Whiskey Galore!
WEEK ONE
Aristophanes' comedy Birds use a great deal of spectacle to portray humor. There is the use of costume and props, as well as the set and music heard throughout this play. Here we take a look at how these items function in the comedy and why they are so useful.
Scene from Aristophanes' Birds?
BIRDS: The chorus in this play is dressed up as birds to portray the inhabitants of the new city Cloudcuckooland. They are featured in the orchestra where the action, plus dance takes place. Both the chorus and the actors use music to communicate with each other, as well as with the audience.This is shown through the use of italics, the passages that are italicized are the ones meant to be sung. In the Peter Meinick translation of Birds, the head bird the Hoopoe calls out his nightingale with song. Not only does this make sense because he is a bird, but the thing he sings shows a romantic connection. "Come my darling, rise from slumber, Fill the air with your holy number" (209-10). The Hoopoe also uses song to call in his chorus of birds: "To me, come to me my feathered friends, to me, to me, Nibblers of freshly plowed fields, come and see" (229-30). Once the chorus comes on stage, they do the majority of the singing. When they hear of the Hoopoe's plan involving a human they call him a traitor and put themselves in army formation: "Forward! Charge! To bloody battle! Attack! Advance with wings extended, push them back! (344-5). The birds also use song to convey to the audience why they should be seen as gods. They say: "We won't perch on high and snub you, Looking down from clouds with disdain. We'll not be like Zeus and sit aloof, You'll never have cause to complain" (728-30). Aristophanes has used the music of the chorus to let the audience in on what the plan for the city is. Music is far more captivating to listen to when you have been watching a play for a few hours, and so Aristophanes probably spread out the choral passages so that the audience would not get bored.
In Charlie Chaplin's movies: The Count, The Immigrant, and Easy Street, music plays a very important role. Because their is no dialogue, these being silent movies, the music tells the story.
THE COUNT: Charlie is a poor apprentice to a taylor and learns of a party from a letter found in the suit jacket of a count. He goes to this party as the count and is involved in a slew of antics. Music is played while party goers are dancing, and when Charlie meets a sexy woman dressed as a gypsy, the music becomes very exotic and sexy. Before, the band that was as the party was playing a waltz, that showed the audience the amount of class and sophistication that was at the party. To convey Charlie's hormones raging, when he sees the gypsy woman, the music changes dramatically. It conveys a new emotion to the audience, one of lust.When Charlie's true identity is revealed, the music speeds up as he tries to escape the clutches of all that are after him. Here the music shows the pace of the movie as well as the urgency in everyone's actions.The band seems to be playing at a faster speed as Charlie runs all through the house, as he becomes more frantic about getting caught, the music also gets faster. Now, instead of the sweet waltz we heard earlier, we hear a jam session that you would think took place in a night club.
THE IMMIGRANT: The focus of this movie is Charlie coming to America in hopes of making a better life for himself. The music shows us how everyone on the ship to Amercia is dealing with sea-sickness and trying to stay still on the rocking vessel.The music has a rocking feel about it, as though it is causing the boat to rock and not the waves. Charlie meets a lovely young lady on the ship that he runs into coincidentally throughout the rest of the movie. The music is very up tempo, unitl Charlie sees his girl, then it is soft and sweet, just the way he tries to act when he is around her. When they meet at a restaurant,Charlie finds a coin on the ground that he figures he can use to pay his bill. Again, there is a band playing in the background. Charlie uses his foot to try to cover the coin and drag it closer to him. He taps his foot to the beat of the music as to make his scheme seem less conspicuous. When he can't seem to get it without his waiter seeing him, Charlie stomps his foot on the coin, making the band stop completely. Here, the music actually was the beginning and end of a very funny scene.
EASY STREET: Here Charlie is a "derelict" turned police officer, assigned to get a bully off of Easy Street. There is a lot of action in this movie, fighting and running away. Not only is the action sped up, but so is the music. Here the music shows the action, in it we hear running and moving, screaming and cheering. The music has a lot of what sounds like string instruments. If the music did not speed up when Charlie did, the audience would not have been as aware of the urgency in his actions. In this movie, because of the quick pace in the action scenes, the music almost seems cartoonish. It woould be reminiscent of music played while Bugs Bunny ran away from Elmer Fudd.
WEEK TWO
Many of the works that we have from Menander are not complete, and so we don't see a true example of how music and a chorus would have been integrated into the plot. Here is what we suspect the role of music would have played in Menander's Dyskolos
DYSKOLOS: The chorus would have probably consisted of people in Sostratos' mother's entourage who sang about how cantankerous Knemon was, or about the praises that are due to Pan. There is also some mention of a chorus in Act One when Chaireas talks to Sostratos about retrieving a call-girl by means of a Komos (58-63). A Komos would have involved an entourage of people going to someone's door to retrieve them. They would probably be singing and dancing on their way, so here Menander makes reference to how music influenced every day life, within the play and outside of the action.Gorgias, while speaking to Sostratos talks about the musical Komos. He says: "I go straight into action, grab her, carry her off, get drunk, burn the door down, am deaf to all reason"(59-61). There would have been choral interludes at the end of each act, as is indicated in the text we have.
The movie It Happened One Night is a sweeping, screwball, romantic comedy. The music sets the mood and becomes background for the happenings in the movie.
Movie Poster for It Happened
One Night
IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT: This movie begins with the leading lady Ellen Andrews running away from her father to rejoin her husband King Westley. Along the way she meets, befriends, and falls in love with newspaper reporter Peter Warne. Some very important revelations are made with background music. While on the bus to New York, the passengers begin to sing about the man on the flying trapeze. Ellen and Peter join in and are able to see one another's playful side. At the end of the song, a woman faints and they go to her and her son's rescue. All of this out of one song. At the end of the movie, Ellen has returned to New York and King, after believing that Peter has left her stranded at a hotel. While walking down the aisle at her wedding to King, the band is playing the wedding march. Ellen realizes she cannot give up on Peter, so she runs from her groom and goes on to live an exciting life with Peter. Here, integral parts of the movie were initiated by a song, making music a driving force in the plot.
WEEK THREE
Plautus is the third and final author we will take a look at. Again, as is the case with Menander, there is no definite mention of a chorus playing a major role in the plot.
RUDENS:
Plautus is said to have used many musical aspects in his plays.They
were really musical comedies, with about a third of the material in sung or
cantica form, with music which has virtually disappeared. A few manuscript markings
purport to outline the melody-line, but interpretation is difficult and recreation
of the sound of his music is not really possible.There
are no musical aspects that are mentioned in the text, however, there may have
been a chorus involving song and dance at the end of this play. This is where
Daemones invites the reformed Labrax and the clever slave Gripus to dinner and
asks the audience to cheer for the play and join in a possible celebration 16
years from the time of the play.
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Our last movie for the course is Whiskey Galore! The story takes place on the Scottish island of Todday, and when there is a lack of whiskey, then a chance to replenish it, music becomes a way to express tradition and joy.
Video Cover
for Whiskey Galore!
WHISKEY GALORE!: Tradition in music plays a large role in the telling of the story. The bagpipes represent freedom and celebration in this movie. George Campbell plays the bagpipes very loudly in front of his mother to prove his loyalty to the other islanders in their plight to get more whiskey, as well as to show his decision to marry. At the engagement party for George, Captain Odd, and their fiances, bagpipes are played to show the good time that everyone is having. The bagpipes are a symbol of unity in this movie. Unity amongst the islanders, most importantly. The bagpipes are what link the community together, and so music in Whiskey Galore! plays the role as being what holds the island together.
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Last Updated September 24, 2001
